Poppies
by The Hmuff
Summary: Captain Haddock tells Tintin about the horrible things he went through during the War. post-trauma, very angsty oneshot.


**Poppies**

The figure in the grassy field cut a striking image— bright blue pullover, pale skin, ginger hair that came to a marked peak at the forehead. He stood out clearly against the emerald grass and sky, still pale with the early breath of morning. He was small for a teenager, but seemed taller than most, perhaps because of his well-developed physique, or simply the way he held himself— as if every moment he was addressing the world, telling them that he was a good deal stronger than they thought.

The small, white dog at his side yipped annoyingly as he cut through the loose, waving grass. "Ici, mon garçon," the boy would call absently, when the dog got too far.

He wasn't doing anything in particular; he was simply enjoying the morning. This field, with its clear, gurgling creek and majestic oaks, held a good deal of memories. Lost in them, he was practically trampling the poppies before he discovered them.

As he couldn't remember there ever being poppies there before, he was confused for a long moment. Then he remembered the gypsies that had camped in this field once, and thought perhaps they had accidentally dropped a pack of seeds. He had always liked the large, red, flowers, so he gathered a generous armful before walking back through the creek, beneath the oaks, back to the towering white hall that stood at the clearing in the forest, and that he called home.

Nobody had awakened yet when Tintin walked in— not even Nestor, which was surprising; he _was _a manservant, after all. Walking into the breakfast room, he cleared a vase of withering roses— the blossoms were beginning to resemble pinecones— and deposited the fresh poppies in their place, punctuating the red with bluebells he'd also taken the time to gather in the field.

He took a step backward, surveying the finished project, and decided he liked it.

Come to think of it, they'd never had poppies in the hall before. Nestor probably never thought of it; from now on, he would, and it would be a nice change from roses, which everybody had had quite enough of anyway, what with the rambling gardens slowly consuming more and more space in the Hall's back lawn.

Tintin made himself some tea and sat down, flipping through a copy of _La Libre Belgique_, a paper he'd done some work for before they fired him for being too precocious. As the sun slipped above the trees, casting patterned streaks of gold light through the windows, and the sound of Nestor bustling in the kitchen met Tintin's ears, he made his way to the pantry to get Snowy his breakfast. When he came back to the breakfast room, the Captain was there, in his dressing gown.

"Bonjour, Captain," Tintin said cheerfully.

Haddock saluted Tintin with his pipe, but looked haggard. It didn't exactly surprise Tintin to see that look on the forty-somethingsea captain, but the man did look worse than usual, and he was also staring blankly at the vase of poppies. That those two factors were combined was mildly concerning; at least, it was confusing, and Tintin's life was built around ravaging through anything confusing until the matter was entirely cleared up.

"Is… anything the matter?" he asked hesitantly.

"Those are poppies in the vase."

Tintin glanced quickly at the vase, trying to figure out what the Captain was getting at. "Yes. It would appear so."

The Captain made some noise inbetween a sigh and a growl, before retreating to his armchair and staring darkly down at the bowl of his pipe.

Unsure of what to do, Tintin asked, "Can I, er, get you anything? Newspaper?"

"No thanks."

Okay.

"Right. I'm going to see what Snowy's up to," Tintin finally said. He was expecting some sardonic reply, but Haddock only grunted.

Forgetting about Snowy, he kicked at a spot on the tile floor, biting his lip. He had no idea what he was supposed to do, to say. He didn't exactly want to ask what was wrong. Haddock could be a bad-tempered old git when he wanted to be, and causing him to flare up would be an entirely stupid thing to do.

"Do you, er, like poppies?" He tried to make his tone sound conversational, but, not meeting the Captain's gaze, was unable to what effect his words had just had.

"No."

"Ah."

"Never have."

Tintin was silent for a moment. And then he asked, almost without realising he was speaking, "Because of opium?" He didn't fully grasp what he had just said until the moment after. It was true, though; they'd seen opium ruin countless lives, and it would make total sense if his aversion was due to that.

Haddock quirked his lips into a quick grin. "No, not really." He stood, stretching, and made his way to the dry bar on the far end of the breakfast room. "I thought about trying some alcohol today. Something weak, of course, just to see if I can stomach it. I tried some watered-down beer a couple days ago… I managed a couple sips… I'll make you one, too, if you want."

"Why not. I'll give it a go."

On the other hand, they'd seen alcohol ruin countless lives, and the Captain was still fighting tooth and nail to get his addiction back.

Perplexed, Tintin shoved his hands into his pockets, watching, annoyed, as the Captain dug through bottles in the cabinet. Any other day he'd have protested, but he was too preoccupied with the poppies to care about Haddock's drinking. "So… why don't you like them?"

"It's a long story," he grumbled. "Goes way, way back."

Tintin smiled brightly. "Those are the best kind."

"I shouldn't have told you it was long." He ferociously twisted the lid off a bottle of beer.

Watching him, Tintin couldn't help but picture him wringing somebody's neck. The man looked bad-natured enough for it. "Probably not."

Haddock pulled out two glasses from the cabinet, inspecting their cleanliness before placing them on the countertop. "You thrive on long stories."

"Well, I am a reporter."

"Blistering barnacles."

Tintin wasn't sure how to take this, so he was silent as the Captain filled the glasses; they took them in hand and retired to the sofa and the armchair, respectively.

Haddock tentatively sniffed the glass. "Ah, this smell takes me back."

Seizing the opportunity to redirect the conversation back to poppies, Tintin said, "How far back?"

"Ah, my first beer. Back in the old pub; it was glorious. I was probably younger than you— at least twenty-five years ago. Had five or six pints. Glorious."

Tintin could imagine few things less glorious than a young Haddock staggering drunkenly around a pub, laughing and belting out drinking songs, but didn't mention it. "Was it around then that you starting hating poppies?" he asked innocently.

Haddock's expression darkened as he was snapped out of his apparently fond memories. "No," he said brusquely, and for a moment, Tintin thought that was all the information he was going to get. But he was wrong. "No; that wasn't until the War."

Tintin held his breath.

Balancing the cup of beer in his hand, he sighed. "There's this poem called something about Flanders' Fields."

"Yes, I've read it."

"Yeah. Well, I was there."

Tintin frowned. He'd never heard about this before. "You never told me."

"I don't like talking about it. Then I have to remember."

Tintin watched as condensation formed on the rim, waiting for the moment when it would drip down onto the Captain's leg. "Well, I knew you were drafted after you moved to France."

"Yeah; I moved there at a bad time. I joined up as part of the navy, of course, but when my ship crashed in Belgium, I was practically forced into fighting the Hun by land." Pausing, he wiped the trickles of condensation from the glass.

_Drat, _Tintin thought. "What does that have to do with poppies?" he asked.

Haddock's eyes went past Tintin, past Moulinsart, out to some horrible place of memories, somewhere in war-torn Belgium. "When we got on land…" He shook his head wearily. "You should've seen them, Tintin. The fields. Everything was red."

"Because of the blood?" he asked, quietly.

"Because of the poppies."

"Oh," said Tintin. And then he repeated it, his eyes widening as understanding dawned on him. "Oh."

"You couldn't tell blood from flowers. Somebody could be on the ground, and you would think they were lying in wait for the Germans, but when you tried to speak to them you realised they were dead. They were drenched in their own blood and you wouldn't even notice. The day we were captured, the sun was even rising. Everything was… was so red…" He paused, his hands going to his eyes, as if he could squeeze out the memories. It took a while before he could continue. "You should've seen what they did to them. To the Belgians. They were only kids, Tintin, your age, younger, but they ran them through like they were pigs. They weren't even fighting. They were just kids, at home with their moms, and the bloody Germans stepped in and butchered them and burned the houses. They burned down whole towns, right there, just to do it."

"Captain," Tintin interrupted softly, but he didn't hear.

"They lined up the women and raped them. They actually lined them up. And they ripped babies from their mother's arms and used them for bayonet practi—"

"Captain, please."

Haddock stopped suddenly, perhaps only now aware of his furious tone of voice, the frantic pace of his speech, the blood rushing to his face. The burn in his face turned to embarrassment; he slowly eased himself back down into the chair, groaning softly. "Oh, Columbus. Lad, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset you."

He swallowed, fingering the hem of his pullover. "No, it's okay."

"It's not. I didn't mean to start on that. It just… it just made me really…" He paused, looking at the glass of beer, and laughed mirthlessly. "You want to know why you found me the way you did? Karaboujan means _my black spirit_. I named it that for a reason. I needed to escape into it, you know? The blackness. I needed to hide from myself, inside myself. It was the only way I knew to survive, after what happened. It was something I could sink into, hide under, a place where I could drown myself in silence, just surrounded by the sea."

"I'm sorry," Tintin said. It seemed to be all he could say.

Captain Haddock just shrugged. "Don't be," he said, sincerely. "You saved me from it."

"Yeah, but I hate the thought of you being in the War. You could've died."

"Coming from you," he scoffed. "You've been in quite a few wars of your own. Don't think about it, lad. That was all ages ago. Long gone."

The boy smiled, but a nagging thought remained at the back of his mind, and after a moment he asked, "When you got admiralty orders, you know, right before that whole thing with Müller, how did—"

But just then, Snowy scampered into the room, yapping at the top of his lungs, and Tintin's attention was diverted entirely. "Aww! Snowy! My little snowball, come here!"

The dog leapt onto Tintin's lap, and the next few moments were consumed with cuddling the furry little animal.

Puffing on his pipe, Haddock watched the two of them playing, and almost felt jealous. He wished he had an excuse to be an idiot like that. Of course, he had a cat, but that wasn't nearly the same thing. His cat was a lump. Snowy was a friend. Well, actually Snowy was a downright pest, but all the same…

"I'll get rid of the flowers."

Tintin's voice interrupted his thoughts, and he glanced up in surprise. Sighing, he took a long drag from his pipe. "No, no. I'm fine. Don't worry about it. I know you like them." He raised a hand, signalling he wouldn't harbour any arguments. "Anyway, I'm bloody glad I told you. It's been inside for far too long."

Tintin shrugged. "Untold stories are the most dangerous kind."

"Reporters," Haddock said witheringly.

The boy chuckled, and went back to playing with Snowy.

A thought occurred to the Captain, and, as unpleasant as it was, he still felt like he had to say it. He looked at the beer in his hand, suddenly wanting to get drunk. "If and when a next war comes— you know, against the Nazis and what have you— you may very well be drafted."

Forgetting about Snowy, Tintin was silent, taking a second to really digest the idea. He finally admitted, "It's a sobering thought."

They didn't talk for a long moment.

"Yeah… and I've had enough of being sober," Haddock replied somewhat jauntily, raising his glass of beer. "Cheers."

Tintin grinned, clinking his glass against the Captain's. "Cheers."

A couple minutes later, when Haddock had left the room to get dressed, Tintin picked a flower from the vase, and stood there for a long time, absently twirling the stem inbetween his fingertips. He found himself hoping that war wouldn't come. All the signs said that it would, but everything in his being protested against the thought, as if mere protesting could make it come untrue. He didn't want to fight. He hated killing people; it wasn't the sort of thing he did. He fought criminals all the time, but he was much better at exposing corruption than putting a bullet in it.

But no matter what, he'd do what he'd have to, for the Captain and for Belgium; his family and fatherland. In that order.

Tucking the poppy into his pocket, he sighed, stretched, picked up Snowy from the sofa, and made his way out of the breakfast room.


End file.
